Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Prevent and Contest

Well, here's a thing: the Government's Home Front strategy in the war on uppity Muslims appears to be inclining towards the counter-productive, though fortunately only if one is concerned with such fripperies as evidence and expert testimony, which the likes of Mad Tessie May have long since shouted down. The programme consists largely of one-word imperatives like Prevent! and Contest!, presumably because shouting is cheap; on the practical side, schools have been ordered to spy on their pupils for signs of "radicalisation", but the Government has not deigned to provide the sort of training which might enable its press-ganged surveillance operatives to make reasonably sensible judgements. Prevent! is apparently short for Prevent, Wogs, Or Else!, and is part of an overall strategy, if strategy is the word I want, called Contest!, which enables citizens to compete in identifying persons at risk of radicalisation from "all groups, such as Islamist extremists or the far right", or anyone else whose values run counter to British ones.